On March 21-22, 2019, my colleagues and I attended the conference Agile Days 2019and I would like to talk a little about it.
Venue: Moscow, World Trade Center
What is Agile Days?
AgileDays is the 13th annual Agile Process Management conference. If you are not familiar with such concepts as “flat organization structure” and “team self-organization”, then I advise you to read about Agile.
How was it
The conference was held on two days: Thursday and Friday (you will agree that the successful completion of the working week is already on Wednesday).
The conference program consisted of almost 100 reports and master classes on various topics. The speakers were employees and managers of various companies that successfully apply Agile approaches (ABBYY, Qiwi, HeadHunter, Dodo Pizza, ScrumTrek and others).
As a rule, the speech of one speaker took 45 minutes, at the end of which it was possible to ask questions. Unfortunately, it was physically impossible to get to all the reports - the presentations were held simultaneously in different halls, so each of us had to choose where to go (we did not agree, but often our interests coincided).
How to choose where to go?
First of all, we focused on the topic of the report. Some of them are more suitable for Scrum Masters, others for Product Owners. There are those that are primarily of interest to company executives. I don’t know why, but there was a full house at a speech on the topic "How to Ditch Teamwork: A Manager's Guide". Apparently, the organizers did not count on such a stir, since the performance was in a relatively small press room (everyone probably wanted to find out how they could kill their teams as soon as possible).
In between the speeches there were coffee breaks where we got together and discussed the speeches of the speakers.
And what have we learned
I can't say that the conference turned my mind around and forced me to reconsider the approaches to our work. Although, most likely, this is exactly what would have happened if a year ago our colleagues (or rather, management) also did not attend a similar AgileDays 2018 event. It was from that moment (maybe even a little earlier) that we embarked on the path of Agile transformation and try to apply certain principles and approaches that were discussed at the speeches.
This conference helped me put everything in my head that I had heard from the guys before.
Here are the main (but not all) approaches to work that the speakers discussed in their monologues:
Product value
Each task, each feature released for sale should carry a certain benefit and value. Each team member must understand why and for what he does it. You don’t have to work for the sake of work, it’s better to go and play football with your colleagues. (maybe just come up with something suitable while kicking the ball).
Unfortunately, in our state sector (and we are engaged in development for the state customer) it is not always possible to determine the value of specific features. Sometimes the task comes "from above" and it needs to be done, even if everyone understands that it is inexpedient. But we will try to find the very “value of the product” even in such situations.
Self-organization and autonomous teams
Much attention was paid to the self-organization of employees and teams in general. If a leader constantly stands over you, distributes tasks, “kicks you” and tries to control everything, then nothing good will come of it. It will be bad for everyone.
It will be more difficult for you to grow and develop as a good specialist, and at some point the manager will still not be able to control all the processes (some of the information will be distorted according to the “broken phone” principle, the other will completely disappear from sight). And what will happen when such a person (manager) goes on vacation or gets sick? Oh my God, the work will rise without him! (I don't think that's what everyone wants).
The manager must be able to trust his employees and not try to be a "single entry point" for everyone. Employees, in turn, should try to take the initiative and show their interest in projects. Seeing this, it will be much easier for the manager to get away from total control over everyone.
An autonomous team is, first of all, a self-organized team capable of fulfilling the set goals (projects). The team itself chooses the ways to achieve them. She does not need an external manager who will indicate what and how to do. All questions and problems should be discussed jointly within the team. Yes, the team can (and should) go to the manager, but only if it understands that this issue cannot be resolved within itself (for example, it is necessary to increase the team's resource in order to successfully complete/complete the project).
Flat organization structure
Departure from the principle “I am the boss - you are the subordinate” has a very positive effect on the climate within the company. People begin to communicate more freely with each other, they stop building conditional boundaries between themselves “well, he’s the boss.”
When a company adheres to the principle of a "flat organization structure", then the position becomes a formality. The role of the person that he occupies in the team begins to come to the fore, and it can be different for everyone: it can be a person who communicates with the customer and collects requirements from him; it can be a scrum master who monitors the team's processes and tries to improve and optimize them.
Team motivation
The issue of employee motivation has not gone unnoticed.
Salary is not the only criterion that encourages a person to work. There are many other aspects that contribute to productive work. You need to communicate more with your employees (not only at work), trust them and ask their opinions, constantly keep feedback. It's great when a "corporate spirit" appears in the team. You can come up with your own paraphernalia, for example logopit, T-shirts, caps (by the way, we already have this). You can try to organize corporate events, field trips and other things.
When it is pleasant and comfortable for a person to work in a team, then the work seems more interesting to him, he does not have the thought “it would be 18:00 as soon as possible to get out of here.”
Team search for new employees
It would seem that the HR service (they are exactly what they are needed for) and the manager (he must also do something) should be engaged in the search for new employees. So why should the team itself take part in this? She already has a lot of work on the project. The answer, in fact, is simple - no one knows better than the team itself what they want to get from the candidate. It is up to the team to work further with this person. So why not give her the opportunity to make this important choice for her?
Distributed Team
It’s already the 21st century and it’s not at all necessary for each of us to go to the office by 9 am (especially when it comes to the IT industry). You can also work productively from home. And if a person works from home, so what prevents him from also working from home, but in another city or even in another country? That's right - nothing gets in the way.
A distributed team is good because you have more options for finding the right employee according to the right criteria (skills, experience, salary level). Agree, the choice of candidates throughout Russia will be much higher than within the city alone. Also, the costs for such employees (office maintenance, equipment) are significantly reduced.
There is also a negative point in such work - people do not see each other. It's very hard to work with someone you don't know personally. Regular video calls and periodic joint corporate events (at least once a year) can easily solve this problem.
Open salaries and other financial matters of the company
It sounds rather unusual, but believe me, in some companies it works. The approach is that each employee of the company has the opportunity to see how much his colleagues earn (! And even how much his management earns).
This is a rather complicated process, and in order to move to open salaries, you need to move very gradually. First of all, it is necessary to equalize the salaries of employees so that there is no situation when Vasya receives 5 rubles for the same work, and Petya - as much as 15. You need to be ready to be able to answer such questions from your employees as “Why does Petya earn more than me” .
It should be noted that salary disclosures are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other financial indicators that will be useful and interesting for employees to learn about.
And finally (this is how almost every speaker ended his speech): there is no need to think that a certain approach to processes within the company and teams will work 100% for everyone. If that were the case, everyone would have been successful a long time ago. We need to understand that we are all human and we are all different. Each of us needs an individual approach. Success lies precisely in finding this “own” key. If you are not comfortable working on Scrum, do not force yourself and your team. Take kanban for example. Maybe this is exactly what you need.
Try, experiment, make mistakes and try again, and then everything will definitely work out for you.
Source: habr.com